--- title: "BoJack Horseman" year: 2014 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/bojack-horseman" fi1m_score: 91 critics_score: 57 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-17T02:45:57.535394+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T02:46:25.675315+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # BoJack Horseman (2014) Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg · MPA TV-MA · Animation, Comedy, Drama **Fi1m score: 91** · Critics 57 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* A horse in a jumper drinks alone in front of his own repeats, and somehow that is the funny part > Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s animated sitcom about a washed-up horse actor starts as Hollywood satire with animal puns and becomes, over six seasons, as honest an account of depression and self-sabotage as comedy has managed. Stay past the first six episodes. ## Synopsis BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett) is a horse who starred in a 1990s family sitcom, Horsin’ Around, and has spent the years since in a house above Los Angeles, drinking and watching his own repeats. In this city half the residents are animals with jobs, mortgages and agents, and nobody finds it strange. His publisher has lost patience with his unwritten memoir and sends a ghostwriter, Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie), to get it out of him. Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul), a young man who wandered into a party and never left, lives on his sofa. His agent, Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris), keeps his career breathing. And Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins), a labrador who fronted a near-identical sitcom and is loved for it, is going out with Diane. ## Review Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s series begins as a joke you have heard before. BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett) was the star of a 1990s family sitcom, *Horsin’ Around*, and has spent the years since in a house above Los Angeles, drinking, watching his own repeats and not writing his memoir. He is also a horse. Half the population of this city are animals with human jobs and human debts, and nobody remarks on it. For about six episodes it looks like showbiz satire with a gimmick. Then it turns out to be about something else, and stays there for six seasons and 76 episodes. Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie) is the ghostwriter sent to get the book out of him, a serious woman who suspects the truth might do him good. Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul) has lived on BoJack’s sofa for years without anyone recalling an invitation. Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris), his agent, is a pink cat who has spent her adult life tidying up after him and wants, in a small persistent way, something of her own. Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) is a labrador who fronted a copy of BoJack’s show, is delighted by everything, and is going out with Diane. Arnett is the reason it works. He plays BoJack low and dry, in the voice of a man who has rehearsed his excuses so often he half believes them, and he leaves a small silence after each joke in which you can hear the character listening to himself. Sedaris does something harder, playing competence as a kind of grief. Brie refuses to soften Diane, who is right about most things and hard to be around for some of them. Lisa Kudrow, as Wanda Pierce, and Aparna Nancherla, as Hollyhock, arrive in later seasons and each gets a run of episodes the show takes as seriously as its lead’s. Lisa Hanawalt’s designs are the other reason. Thick outlines, flat colour, animal heads on ordinary bodies in ordinary clothes, and backgrounds so full of shop signs and posters that a frame rewards a second look while the foreground is falling apart. Jesse Novak’s score is mostly a plaintive piano, and it knows when to stop. The editors, Brian Swanson, Jose Martinez and Molly Yahr, cut dialogue fast and then hold a wide shot of an empty room longer than a comedy is supposed to. One episode in the third season, set almost entirely underwater and almost without speech, is as good a piece of near-silent comedy as we have seen in years. Here is what we felt. We laughed a great deal, mostly at things in the background. And more than once an episode ended and we sat through the closing song without moving, because the last scene had shown BoJack doing exactly the thing he had spent twenty minutes promising not to do, and the writers, Bob-Waksberg, Kate Purdy, Joanna Calo and the rest, had declined to explain it or forgive it. The first episode already has him alone on the sofa in front of his own old show, a drink in his hand, with the joke and the sadness in the same shot. Comedies about awful men usually love them a little too much. This one keeps counting the damage. Most critics disagree with us. The reviews so far were largely written in the summer of 2014 on the opening episodes, and they found a familiar Hollywood satire with animal puns and a lead who resembled other rich, self-pitying men in comedies. They were not wrong about those episodes. The first half of the first season is the weakest stretch of the run, and had we stopped there we would have scored it close to where they did. They are wrong about the series, because the series had not yet worked out what it was for. It has faults. Todd’s subplots spin into farce that can run a whole episode past its welcome. The show sometimes lets a character stand up and say the theme aloud, which it never needs to. The animal puns wear thin around the fourth season. None of it costs the show its footing. It carries an 18, for the language mostly. Watch it in order and not too many at once; it is built for two episodes a night, and the sadness needs room to settle. The tagline is “Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.” The show spends 76 episodes looking back. *Fi1m score 91, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews split down the middle, with two warm, two lukewarm and two cold. What agreement there is clusters around the voice cast: even the critics who dislike the series credit the lead performances with carrying it. Where the praise runs warmest, it is for what sits beneath the Hollywood jokes. Vulture finds a radically sad and accurate portrait of depression under the animal satire, and Den of Geek sees a confident, original premise with room to grow. The reservations gather on the satire itself. Variety finds the showbiz material tired rather than edgy and the premise stale; IndieWire allows that the show is self-aware but says it goes little further; The AV Club sees too few reasons to continue past the opening episodes; and The Guardian, more sympathetic, still finds the celebrity critique hard to care about once the novelty fades. The spread is wide, and the divide is over whether the sadness under the gags is enough to carry it. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Vulture** (90/100, inferred): The series offers a radically sad and accurate portrait of depression beneath its anthropomorphic animal satire and Hollywood jokes. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2014/09/bojack-horsemans-radically-funny-sadness.html) - **The AV Club**, Erik Adams (C+): Netflix's adult animation entry stumbles with familiar showbiz satire and insufficient reason to continue past the initial episodes despite strong voice work. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/netflix-s-entry-into-the-adult-animation-race-bojack-h-1798181164) - **The Guardian** (50/100, inferred): The series is an intriguing Netflix departure mixing Daria and Curb Your Enthusiasm elements with animal gags, but its celebrity critique proves hard to care about beyond the novelty. The first season ends on an intriguingly optimistic note about turning failure into success. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/aug/29/bojack-horseman-review-curb-your-enthusiasm-daria-netflix-will-arnett-aaron-paul) - **IndieWire**, Ben Travers (30/100, inferred): The self-aware series is carried by its lead voice performances but fails to go much further in its satire or storytelling. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/shows/review-will-arnett-aaron-paul-carry-the-self-aware-bojack-horseman-out-of-the-glue-factory-but-not-much-further-23012/) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the premise stale and unoriginal, comparing the lead to an equine version of an Arrested Development character and dismissing the Hollywood satire as tired rather than edgy. [Read](https://variety.com/2014/digital/reviews/tv-review-netflixs-bojack-horseman-1201279975/) - **Den of Geek**, Daniel Kurland (4.5/5): Netflix's confident adult animated comedy features an excellent voice cast and original premise that promises strong longevity. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/netflixs-bojack-horseman-review/) ## Details - **Created by:** Raphael Bob-Waksberg - **Creator:** Raphael Bob-Waksberg - **Director:** Amy Winfrey, JC Gonzalez, Aaron Long, Adam Parton, Anne Walker Farrell, Peter Merryman, Martin Cendreda, Joel Moser, James Bowman, Mike Roberts, Mike Hollingsworth, Matt Mariska, Mollie Helms, Otto Murga, Tim Rauch, Matt Garofalo - **Writer:** Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Elijah Aron, Peter Knight, Joanna Calo, Joe Lawson, Jordan Young, Kate Purdy, Kelly Galuska, Alison Tafel, Nick Adams, Vera Santamaria, Mehar Sethi, Rachel Kaplan, Shauna McGarry, Alison Flierl, Scott Chernoff, Jonny Sun, Minhal Baig, Caroline Goddard, Scott Marder, Amy Schwartz, Laura Gutin - **Editor:** Brian Swanson, Molly Yahr, Jose Martinez - **Music:** Jesse Novak - **Production design:** Lisa Hanawalt - **Producer:** Corey Campodonico, Alexander Bulkley, Richard Choi - **Cast:** Lisa Kudrow as Wanda Pierce (voice); Hong Chau as Pickles Aplenty (voice); Will Arnett as BoJack Horseman (voice); Aaron Paul as Todd Chavez (voice); Alison Brie as Diane Nguyen / Diana the Princess of Wales (voice); Amy Sedaris as Princess Carolyn / Tangled Fog of Pulsating Yearning / Priscilla Crustacean (voice); Paul F. Tompkins as Mr. Peanutbutter / Mr. Chocolate Hazelnut Spread (voice); Aparna Nancherla as Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzerelli-McQuack (voice) - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 22 August 2014 - **Genres:** Animation, Comedy, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1eJMig5Ik4 ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Undone* (2019): Bob-Waksberg and Kate Purdy again, rotoscoped this time, and just as sad about families. - *The Larry Sanders Show* (1992), Fi1m 91: The showbiz self-loathing BoJack borrows, done live and twenty years earlier. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-larry-sanders-show.md) - *Sunset Boulevard* (1950), Fi1m 93: The original faded star in a big empty house, and the writer who moves in. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sunset-boulevard.md) - *Please Like Me* (2013): Australian comedy about depression that is funny first and honest immediately after. - *Aggretsuko* (2018): A red panda screams death metal about her office job; the animals are the point. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/bojack-horseman